Twitter will now be banning users who continue to spread false COVID-19 information.
The coronavirus vaccines are rolling out gradually all over the world. In a bid to curb misinformation, Twitter is rolling out a strike system policy that can permanently ban users if they continuously share misleading posts about the COVID 19 vaccine.
The strike system is being rolled out to determine if further enforcement action other than a label is necessary on a misleading Tweet. According to Twitter, repeated violations of the COVID-19 policy are enforced based on the number of strikes an account will attract for violations of the policy.
How many strikes would you need?
One strike would not attract any account-level action, two and three strikes would attract a 12-hour account lock, four strikes, and Twitter would lock an account for 7 days, five or more strikes can lead to a permanent suspension of an account.
The individuals will be notified directly when a label or required Tweet removal results in additional account-level enforcement.
The company said in a blog post:
“Our goal with these product interventions is to provide people with additional context and authoritative information about COVID-19, Through the use of the strike system, we hope to educate people on why certain content breaks our rules so they have the opportunity to further consider their behavior and their impact on the public conversation”
Twitter noted that it has removed over 8,400 Tweets and challenged 11.5 million accounts worldwide since the time it introduced COVID 19 guidelines on misinformation, last year.
Twitter will first apply labels to misinformation posts if they violate their policy. These posts will further be required to inform automated tools to identify and label similar content across the service.
